Are you kidding me? Crosby and Malkin together constantly produces scoring chances. And they've hooked for lots of goals. My suggestion to you, thepittman - keep your hands on the bottle and away from the keyboard. Thank you.

The power play always features the 2 out there together, and it is generally disappointing. Then the last 40 seconds has 3rd-line guys out generating nothing. I'll never understand not going to 2 units centered by Crosby and Malkin playing about one minute each. The first unit sent out is always the one that had not been out most recently, so no egos would be hurt.

Bathgate wrote:The power play always features the 2 out there together, and it is generally disappointing. Then the last 40 seconds has 3rd-line guys out generating nothing. I'll never understand not going to 2 units centered by Crosby and Malkin playing about one minute each. The first unit sent out is always the one that had not been out most recently, so no egos would be hurt.

if we split them up, only one of them gets to be on the first unit. the biggest problem with this is that letang is our ONLY d man capable of being the point man on the pp. so the malkin unit gets neal and letang, and then the crosby unit gets all the other scraps, kind of making putting crosby out there at all sort of pointless

This will never happen, Crosby & Malkin regardless of perceived chemistry, are two of the best players in the world, if not the top two...you have to have them out on the ice if you have a 5 on 3. If you don't, you look like a fool. And HCDB doesnt' like to look like a fool.

While I'd like to explore the two separate units featuring Crosby, then Malkin idea... It's not going to happen.

As you guys said, they have no other D to approximate what Letang does. So that puts the second unit at a severe disadvantage in effectiveness.

While I think the PP with Crosby OR Malkin is better than the PP with Crosby AND Malkin; there aren't any tenable options to it.

The reason Crosby and Malkin together is worse, is that they are the same player trying to occupy the same spot and same role. Honestly, Malkin is better at it. But egos being what they are, you can't put Crosby on the 2nd unit as is.

Now, if you picked up a Gonchar (or type like him) specifically to log time on the PP point and help man a 2nd unit? Then maybe. But that's all hypothetical at this point.

As for the two-headed monster at ES? End of period only. Outside of that, I don't like it because you allow the other team to match their best D-pairing and checking line against your best line. As opposed to them being split, the other team can only match their best against ONE of yours. Which means you get Crosby or Malkin out there against the other teams second best defenders. And that is a WIN.

Playing Sid and Geno together (with Neal!) kills any momentum the Pens have when they don't score. Why put all the eggs in 1 basket? Sid and Malkin are expert playmakers. The best way to take advantage of that is to utilize them to make lesser players more productive. Putting them together minimizes that effect.

Likewise, as Lebrun pointed out today, rolling 4 lines in this shortened season is going to be critical. But to do that, you've got to spread out the wealth so that each shift can actually build momentum instead of 3 lines just being out there on the ice, with no threat to score...

Putting them together is in act of desperation. It's like Blysma's lost his faith in his players, as they've probably lost their faith in him.

Anybody else here that is against the two-headed monster circus...... think that HCDB was giving a big MIDDLE FINGER to the two-headed monster haters tonight by starting the game against the Isles with it?

There's always *some* defensibility of it when it's at the end of a period, or perhaps after an icing... but at the start of the game? So your next two line changes can put a bunch of jabronis out there to give the opponents an easy early couple of minutes in the hockey game?

I definitely think HCDB is letting us know what he thinks of our criticism of his only "tactic".